September 10, 2018. Thompson Falls, Montana. United States Antimony Corporation (“USAC”, NYSE American “UAMY”) reported major plans to increase the production of antimony, gold and silver from Mexico.
On August 31, 2018, USAC closed on a Member Interest and Share Capital Agreement between and among Great Lakes Chemical Corporation, LANXESS Holding Company US Inc., the “seller”, and USAC, the “buyer.” The Seller has paid USAC $1,500,000 to dismantle and transport all the equipment and cleanup an antimony plant in Reynosa, Mexico which has become the property of USAC. The weight of the equipment has been estimated at 1,500 tons, and it will involve numerous large cranes and heavy equipment and has been estimated to take six months to complete. The trucking will involve more than 50 truckloads. The equipment will be used at all USAC Mexican mines and plants and also in the United States for operations in Montana and Idaho.
At the Wadley Mine in San Luis Potosi, the main drift, the “General Level” will be reactivated by cleaning up the waste with an Eimco 911 load-haul-dump (LHD) loader and Plymouth locomotive with cars. This will provide access and transportation of the lower grade for the mill that has not been run for more than a year. Simultaneously, a larger primary power line and transformer will be installed to run a 200 horsepower compressor. This will allow the use of pneumatic chipping hammers in the mine. These two steps could double production.
The Santa Monica drift at Sierra de Guadalupe in Zacatecas will be restarted. The mine is equipped with an Eimco 911 LHD, several compressors, drills, and an explosives license. The ore is primarily sulfide and can be upgraded to a high grade 60-70% antimony floatation concentrate at the USAC Puerto Blanco mill to make antimony tri-sulfide for the production of primers in all center-fired ordnance. The higher grade sorted ore (direct shipping ore or “DSO”) will ship to the USAC smelter at Madero. There are no records from previous production at Guadalupe, but the deposit is very similar in geology and size to Wadley.
At the Soyatal District in Queretaro, Mexico, a buying program will be started to purchase DSO for the Madero smelter. The District rivaled Wadley production in the past and is expected to go to sulfides at depth that can be milled at Puerto Blanco.
Construction of the cyanide leach plant for the Los Juarez gold/silver/antimony plant should allow pilot testing to commence during Q4 of 2018. Installation of the tailings pond liner should begin by the end of September 2018. Meanwhile the construction of the leach tanks, acid wash circuit, elutriation circuit, Merrill Crowe plant, and carbon regeneration kiln are underway in Montana. Much of this equipment will be ready to put on the new floor of the leach plant during October. The Los Juarez deposit is an open pit bulk-mineable property with a grade of approximately $125.00 per metric ton. The mineralized zone has a strike length of 3.5 kilometers and a width of more than 1 kilometer. Following the confirmation of the beneficiation, a drill program will be initiated and the installation of the 400- ton mill will be resumed.
When installed, the equipment from the Reynosa plant will increase the capacity of the Madero Smelter in Coahuila, Mexico to approximately 30,000,000 pounds per year of antimony oxide.
Estimated sales for the month of August 2018 were as follows:
Antimony pounds | 131,184 |
Zeolite short tons | 1,244 |
The average Rotterdam price for antimony metal during August 2018 was $7,995.45 per ton or $3.626 per pound. The price has been increasingly slowly in Q3 2018.
CEO John Lawrence said “USAC has invested considerable capital in the exploration, acquisition, permitting, and holding of the Mexican properties. By the end of the year, all of the properties should be in production and revenue from antimony, silver, and gold should be rapidly increasing as a result of our long term investments and strategy.”
About U.S. Antimony
US Antimony is a growing, vertically-integrated natural resource company that has production and diversified operations in precious metals, zeolite and antimony.
Original Article: http://www.usantimony.com/2018_newsroom.htm#NEWSROOM_2013_
